LGBT+ Book Club - June

Join us to discuss our book club pick Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang (description below)!

We’ll start with introductions, then discuss the book (what we liked, didn’t like, etc). We’ll wrap it up by discussing thoughts for our next months book pick.
Here’s a rough schedule:
• 7:00-7:15 — Arrive, order something to eat / drink, informal introductions.
• 7:15-8:00 — Discussion
• 8:00-8:30 — Planning for next month / continued chatting.
In addition to discussing the book, my hope is that this group will connect people with similar interests to form a community of queer folks who love to read! If we get off-topic on a subject we all are interested in, that’s great! And you’re welcome to stay after to chat and mingle.

**Location: Panera Southington

About Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang
A staggering, tender epic about gay men in rural China and the women who marry them.

For over thirty years, Old Second and his wife, Bao Mei, have cobbled together a meager existence in New York City’s Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two aren’t in love. In rural China, before they emigrated, they frequented the Workers’ Cinema: a rundown theater where gay men cruised without fear for intimacy and conversation.

While classic war films played, Old Second and his countrymen found privacy—and love—in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold tickets to closeted men; guarding their secrets, guiding them in their relationships, and even finding her own happiness with the theater’s projectionist. But when Old Second’s passion for his lover is discovered, a series of haunting events unfold, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.

As we follow these characters from China to New York, from first love to old age, we bear witness to the tensions of immigration—and how memory forever weighs down the present. Cinema Love is a big-hearted and heart-shattering novel about desire, secrets, grief, how we care for one another, and how we survive.